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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676389">You Held Me Together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harper44/pseuds/Harper44'>Harper44</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rhett &amp; Link</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Best Friends, F/M, Major character death - Freeform, best friend death, end of gmm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:13:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676389</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harper44/pseuds/Harper44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhett McLaughlin unexpectedly passes away. Link has to work through what that means for Mythical and for himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Christy Neal/Link Neal, Jessie McLaughlin/Rhett McLaughlin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Held Me Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's a beautiful Friday and Link had a good morning. He's been at work about 15 minutes and he already has a list of things in his head to tell Rhett when he gets there. While walking towards the recording studio, Link gets a phone call. As he’s pulling it out of his pocket, he’s hoping it's not Rhett calling to say he's going to be late. They have a full schedule. His brow furrows when he sees it's his wife. She never calls him while he's at work unless there's an emergency.</p><p>"Hey baby, what's wrong?" Link asks.</p><p>"Hey," Christy's voice is low and horse.</p><p>"Woah, Christy, what's wrong, what happened?" He enters the set and waves to the handful of people in there getting things ready, heart beating out of his chest. "Are you okay? Are the kids okay?"</p><p>"Yes, the kids and I are fine." Link can tell she's trying to keep from crying. "Sit down, honey. I have something to tell you." He takes a seat at the desk because it's the closest chair available. "Link, Jessie just called me. Rhett was in a wreck on the way to work." She stops there like she can't get the next words out.</p><p>A chill runs through his body and his stomach flips. "Oh no. Is he in the hospital? We'll cancel everything today, I can go be with him now. Are Jessie and the kids okay?"</p><p>"He died, Link."</p><p>He wants to ask 'what?' He wants to think this is some kind of joke, some mistake. But he knows his wife, he knows her voice. Bile comes up his throat and he drops the phone in favor of grabbing his puke bucket and heaving into it. </p><p>"Link?" Asks Stevie, "Are you sick?" She walks over to the desk. Link points a shaky finger at his phone that's lying face up on the desk and heaves again. Stevie picks it up and asks Christy what's wrong. When she hears the news she sinks down to the floor next to the desk, sob shaking her body. She holds it together long enough to assure Christy she'll take care of Link until someone gets him home. </p><p>Employees begin to gather at these displays, hesitant to ask what's going on and offering words of comfort. Link puts the trash can down at some point and just rests his head between his knees, hearing and feeling nothing. Stevie asks someone to gather everyone in the building for an emergency meeting. A couple of people gently guide Link to his office, but once he reaches the doorway the news hits him all over again and he can't bring himself to place his foot over the threshold. The soothing words of the two people with him go in one ear and out the other. Once they finally realize he's not going in there, they opt to take him out to one of the main rooms where everyone is gathering. </p><p>Stevie delivers the news, there's no easy way to say it. The whole room is silent for a long time, many eyes finding Link who’s curled up in a chair in the corner, dissolving into himself. The world is falling away and there's nothing to keep him anchored. Rhett was always his anchor. "Can someone take me home?" He asks, voice coming out in a croak.</p><p>The drive feels like it takes forever, but at last he's falling into the arms of his wife. She'll keep him together, hopefully. </p><p>The internet’s response is overwhelming. Link avoids his phone and computers at all costs, but Stevie and the team gratefully accept all condolences. The only thing Mythical put out was an announcement of the news on twitter and facebook the day of. Otherwise, they’ve only liked posts about Rhett and left it at that. They have some episodes banked, but they don’t upload those either. Stevie insists on waiting for Link to rally and decide what to do.</p><p>The living half of the duo manages to merely exist in the days following Rhett’s death. His wife and kids support him diligently, but there’s no quick way to heal a person who has been ripped in half. On Tuesday of the next week, Link feels strong enough to go to the office. He calls Stevie to let her know he’s coming and that he’s ready to discuss what they’re going to do next. </p><p>His employees don’t know how to receive him when he gets there. He gets some hugs and sympathetic smiles, but everything is so quiet. Link stops in the hallway in front of their office. He won’t go in, he can’t. He’d break down. The reminders throughout the whole building of Rhett are bad enough without going in there. Instead, he steps into Stevie’s office and sits. They never have meetings there; she used to always come over to their office. Easier to move one person rather than two. He won’t have to worry about that anymore. </p><p>Stevie sits at the table across from him. “How are you feeling?”</p><p>“However you think I’m feeling, triple it,” Link says, “What do we need to discuss?”</p><p>“Okay. What do you want to do about GMM?”</p><p>All those times they joked about continuing if one of them were dead flash through Link’s mind. It’s not the show when one of them is missing. There have been plenty of times over the years when one of them was available for recording while the other wasn’t. He remembers filming one episode by himself just to see if it could work. They scrapped it after the first take. </p><p>“I can’t sit at that desk again.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>“I can release some kind of video for all the channels. We can’t pretend like this isn’t over, Stevie.” They hold eye contact for a long time before she nods. “My name hardly exists without his in front of it.”</p><p>“Mythical Kitchen?”</p><p>“That will be fine, has little to do with us. Anything without Rhett and I in it can be assessed, otherwise we need to start looking into how long we can pay people without putting out content. I’ll write reference letters and make calls to make sure everyone gets good jobs.”</p><p>Stevie writes for a moment before saying, “So that’s it? You won’t do anything alone?”</p><p>“I don’t know how,” Link whispers, “I haven’t done anything alone in thirty-five years.” He rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes and swallows down his sobs. “I’ll come in and make one video on Thursday. I’ll write what I want to say to the Mythical Beasts.”</p><p>He moves to leave, but Stevie grabs his arm. “Link, have you been on the internet lately?” He shakes his head, thinking his reasons are self explanatory. “Give it a chance. It might hurt, but it will help.”</p><p>When Link gets home, Christy sits with him as he logs into social media for the first time since Friday. It makes him cry harder than he has yet, but it is what he needed. There’s so much art and so many videos. There are people pouring out their hearts about how Rhett and Link changed their life. You would almost think they both died, and that just reminds Link of how closely they were tied together. Through it all are people wanting to know if Link is okay. He owes them one more video.</p><p>Jessie calls that afternoon to inform them of funeral arrangements and to ask Link if it can be public. “Jessie, I know it will make it harder, but if it really is okay, I’d love for it to be a public funeral. Thank you for asking me. It would be stupid not to accept the support of the fans now.”</p><p>Link’s video releases on Friday morning at the usual GMM time on all of their channels. In it, he thanks the beasts for their support and promises to continue to create in Rhett’s memory, just not in the way they did together. It has more views than anything else they’ve ever done.</p><p>Hundreds of people come to the funeral and Link is shocked to find that some of them drove and flew in from hours away. He holds onto Christy and Jessie the whole time, hands shaky but mainly able to keep from breaking down. </p><p>At very long last he finds himself standing at the graveside of his best friend alone. He sinks to the ground and lays there a while, tears slipping down his cheeks. “This is going to sound horrible, but I’m glad it was you and not me, in a way. Twisted, right? Most people would say they’d trade their life for their loved one to be alive. I wouldn’t, Rhett. I would never want you to go through what I’m feeling right now. I think you’d say the same thing to me.</p><p>“I thought we’d do our last episode of GMM together. Tell the mythical beasts we were moving on to bigger things, movies and shows and books. Thought we’d do it together. We were supposed to end up with more than sixty years together, Rhett. Longer than most marriages, you know? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you. I have to re-learn how to live. I tried to lean over to you at your own funeral visitation to make a joke. Why’d it happen like this? Why?” Even though it’s so unlike him, Link allows himself a scream of rage. It echoes into the clear blue sky. He’s sure his wife heard it from the car. She’ll be worried. “I’m gonna go clean up this mess you left, brother. Gotta thank our wives for keeping me together so far. I never realized that you were the glue that kept me together until you were gone.” He stands slowly and brushes the dirt off his nice black suit. “I love you.” He doesn’t tack ‘man’ or ‘brother’ on the end of it like they used to. They should have said it more honestly before. But Link trusts Rhett knew the honesty with which he said it every single time, no matter the absurdity of the situation that surrounded it. </p><p>As he walks through the graveyard, one of Rhett’s crazy theories comes to mind. Maybe in some other universe they’re still together. That has to be enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Writing/reading/watching stories where one party in a best friend pair dies absolutely kills me because I've had my best friend for 13 years. For some reason I still wrote this anyways.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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